Term access refers to a capability to obtain or make use of or take advantage of something. In communications, access typically refers to the right to obtain or make use of or take advantage of a communication resource. Such communication resource may be, for example, a physical or logical communication channel, or a service provided by a service provider.
The roles and responsibilities in communications have conventionally been divided to subscribers, operators, network providers, service providers, and the like. However, due to the evolving new technologies, these conventional roles and responsibilities are undergoing a change. Conventionally, a subscriber has been defined as user of a telecommunication service, based on a contract with the service provider. Additionally, telecommunications companies have made agreements to apply roaming such that user terminals registered in their user registers may be used in both networks. People move and travel more and more, but due to this agreement-based operation models, the users of communication services have been encumbered to static configurations of operators and prices contractually agreed between them.
Due to the rapid development, user terminals of today typically include more than one communication interface such that they are able to communicate over different access networks. This increases the potential for roaming significantly, because a particular communication need or a service could be implemented though various accesses networks and interfaces. However, it is very difficult and laborious to identify and go though the various access alternatives and quickly decide the best one for the current communication need.